The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar/A Summer's Night

by Paul Laurence Dunbar

For works with similar titles, see A Summer's Night (Mumford).

A SUMMER'S NIGHT

The night is dewy as a maiden's mouth,
  The skies are bright as are a maiden's eyes,
  Soft as a maiden's breath the wind that flies
Up from the perfumed bosom of the South.
Like sentinels, the pines stand in the park;
  And hither hastening, like rakes that roam,
  With lamps to light their wayward footsteps home,
The fireflies come stagg'ring down the dark.